The present invention relates to an internet moving image linking system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an internet moving image linking system and a link recognition method, each of which is capable of reducing link information necessary for the related information in a moving image linkage.
Nowadays, based on the use of computers, many people are using hypertext applications by clicking, by means of a mouse, a hot link within a World Wide Web (WWW) home page on the Internet. The hot link means that an image area wherein there are active hyperlinks.
The Hypertext technology is being broadly utilized in text documents and image media and, particularly, has begun to be used for animations and videos. The internet moving image linking system is being progressively developed in which the point and click functions of Hypertext are introduced into full moving-image videos.
However, the conventional moving image linking system cannot link with related information varied with the time or by the operation of a moving image. In such a system, when the time or operation of a moving image varies, the linkage with the same related information can be merely set. Even when linkage is set every time or shape of a moving image, the moving image generally varies its shape from time to time. Therefore, the problem is that an enormous volume of information is required to store link information every time or shape.
JP-A No. 187402/1998 discloses the method for showing the position of a time-dependent video hot link. This method can indicate the position of a time-dependent video hot link to a user, but cannot solve the above-described problems.
For that reason, the internet time-varying image link system has been long waited that can reduce link information necessary for the related information even when a linkage is established with complicated moving images such as movies.